Arabella of Mars(78)
Richardson’s eyes had gone wide with astonishment. “And if we do not perform this ridiculous ceremony?”
“They will inspect the ship, sir,” she told him, “one way or another. If they are not invited aboard they will force their way inside, and their inspection in that case will not be courteous. And if they are offered violence they will respond in kind. But if we observe the proper forms, the inspection will cause no damage.”
“Sir!” Richardson protested again, and again the captain gestured him to silence. But he did not speak—he merely looked out over the surging crowds of Martians, brow furrowed and lips pressed tightly together.
Finally he turned back to Arabella. “You were born and raised here?”
“Up to the age of sixteen, sir. You must believe me, sir.”
Just then one of the Martians stepped forward into the cleared area, raised her spear above her head, and chuttered out a statement whose meaning Arabella could only guess at. Arabella’s command of the language was spotty at best, she knew, and between regional dialect and excess of emotion this Martian’s speech was nearly unintelligible to her.
“What’s that he said?” Stross demanded of her.
She turned and looked at him. The entire quarterdeck had fallen silent, all eyes fixed on her, none more intensely than the captain’s.
“She requests that a party be allowed on board to inspect the ship,” she said. It was almost certainly the Martians’ desire, even if not a translation of the actual words. “I don’t know how much longer they will wait.” That much, at least, was completely true.
For a long moment the captain’s intense brown eyes inspected her face. Then he turned to Richardson. “Mr. Richardson, you will do exactly as Miss Ashby suggests, without hesitation or compromise. That is an order, Mr. Richardson. Do you understand?”
Richardson’s face darkened, jaw quivering, but then, between clenched teeth, he muttered, “Aye, aye, sir.”
Arabella swallowed and addressed the captain. “May I give them the charts of the Venusian approach, sir? They will … they will not be returned.”
“Yes. And the whisky. How much will be needed?”
“One bottle will be sufficient, I should think.” She looked out over the crowd, whose agitation was visibly growing. “We must make haste.”
As quickly as her skirts would allow, Arabella hurried to the great cabin, where she shoved Aadim aside and extracted the rolled charts from the cubby behind his desk. “Excuse me,” she whispered to him, though his green glass eyes bore no reproach.
Emerging from the great cabin, she met Stross on the deck. “Here’s your whisky,” he said, holding out a heavy cut-glass decanter about three-quarters full of a dark amber liquid. “It’s Ledaig, from my own private stock. The very best.”
“Thank you, sir,” she replied. “I am certain the Martians will be duly impressed.” She was surprised at the confidence she heard in her own voice.
“If this doesn’t work,” he muttered in her ear as he handed the bottle over, “I’ll kill you myself.”
She chose to behave as though she had not heard his words.
*
Arabella, the captain, and Richardson descended to the hold, where the cargo hatch had already been unsealed. Even as they arrived, two burly carpenter’s mates knocked out the last of the wedges and swiveled the hatch open, letting in the clattering sound and dusty cinnamon odor of the crowd of Martians. Four airmen then ran out the gangplank, which raised a puff of red dust as its end thudded to the sand some yards below.
The Martians grew silent. No one moved.
The captain spoke low to Arabella. “What do we do now?”
“I believe we should meet them on the sand,” she said with as much confidence as she could muster.
Arabella’s knees wobbled as she made her way down the steeply canted gangplank. She tried to tell herself it was because of the unaccustomed gravity. Ahead of her, the captain’s long dark hands gripped each other tightly behind the broad back of his best uniform coat. Behind her Richardson followed, muttering under his breath, the stopper of the whisky decanter rattling gently with his steps. Arabella herself held the rolled chart ahead of herself as though it were an offering, minding her footing carefully—her absurd ladylike slippers offered little purchase on the well-worn boards.
They arrived at the bottom, and finally she felt beneath her feet the familiar cool crunch of Martian sand. For how many months had she longed for this moment—her return to Mars, to Woodthrush Woods, to the sands of her birth. And yet she had never dreamed that the situation might be any thing near as dire as this.
Four Martians stepped forward from the crowd, the blue and gold tassels on their hats marking them as the group’s rukesh. They paused before the three humans. Arabella, the captain, and then, hesitantly, Richardson each dropped to one knee, backs straight and heads held high, a formal Martian posture of greeting which Arabella had thought might be the most appropriate under the circumstances. The Martians glanced at each other, then bowed in the English fashion, which Arabella took as a good sign.
The captain returned to a standing position. “We are aware,” he said in his deep clear carrying voice, “that we are an armed group entering disputed territory in time of conflict. In accordance with ancient Martian custom, we offer you hospitality”—here he gestured behind him to Arabella and Richardson, who likewise stood—“and invite you to inspect our ship.” The wording was something that he and Arabella had worked out, based on her recollections of Khema’s lessons in Martian history. She hoped that she recalled those lessons better than she did the Scripture verses she’d gotten from her mother.